Best Caliber .22 vs .25, .30 Calibers For Long Range Plinking / Hunting

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Centercut,

I jdon’t see the advantage of the 31 grain .22 cal NSA’s over the .25 cal 34.9 NSA’s for long range shooting/hunting, gun longevity or shot count.

Shooting the .31 grain .22’s @ 1000 fps requires extremely high reg pressure, stresses the gun, and more importantly… the bc is not as good as the .25 34.9 NSA’s. (.11 vs .095 in the .22)

wind drift with the .25 is superior as well and it can be done without stressing the gun and with a higher shot count.

Example: with a 10 mph 90 degree crosswind at 250 yards the .25 cal 34.9 NSA @ 900 fps drifts 2.6 mils (StrelokPro)

the .22 cal 31 grain NSA @ 1000 fps drifts 3.2 mils at the same distance. (StrelokPro )

The .22 does shoot flatter but what difference does it make when clicking? Wind drift and shot count are king to me.

my impact .25 shoots the NSA 34.9 at 880 fps well with the superior barrel but not as good as the guns listed above.

Brad In Salt Lake
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Brad, if you took your numbers off the NSA web site you should know those are just SWAGs and not confirmed. My .25 NSA 43.5 has an ACTUAL measured BC of 0.103. The 31.2 grain NSA in .22 caliber have an ACTUAL measured BC of 0.105. So about the same. But I can shoot them accurately faster. And I get 300 per box vice 225 per box. I’m running the reg on the Maverick at about 150-ish. Not super high. The .25 Impact I have at about 135-ish so a little lower. 
It’s always better to actually measure BC from your own gun at your own area vice just pulling unproven numbers off the internet. FYI, the guys that did great at the slug NRL-22 at RMAC shot .22 caliber heavy slugs. That’s gotta mean something, right? ;)
 
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Yea, very interesting. I am curious if Strelok pro is as accurate at wind drift as people might think ? To me it is a great application but some areas people have hinted that the wind drift is the weaker part of the application ? The mildot drop is outstanding and some of the wind drift has been very close for me....

Jay
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Jay, Brad above was talking Pellets. Once you go much over about 950 with them your BC will lower and you’ll get more drift. For slugs that cutoff point is at least 100 FPS higher, maybe more. . 
 
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My personal favs... 34.9 .25 NSA out of a slug a running around 950. Picked up some 28.5gr FB .22 that I'm liking a lot out of a SH liner around 1000. 31.2 I like but more around 970-980. My liners like .217, but as ccut said, I have a sneaky feeling that .2165 is the ticket. 

Oddly, 33 gr zan in .22 and .218 shoot faster than my .217 31.2 NSA. Talking a 20+ fps difference. 
 
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Centercut, 

I agree… I never quite get what NSA and H&N publish in terms of BC, but their published numbers for BC are a good baseline for the purposes of discussion and making comparisons 


my point is that ( and I don’t really understand why) higher speed doesn’t necessarily improve wind drift as it does trajectory. If it did… I’d be setting up to shoot much faster. 

There were some great slug shooters at RMAC. Clearly their strategy with heavy .22’s at high speeds works. 











 
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